Odd Socks for World Down Syndrome Day
Year 3 student is raising awareness of Down Syndrome to support her close family friend.
Ronnie Gall (8) approached her teachers to ask if they could hold an event to help raise awareness of Down Syndrome.
A close friend of Ronnie has Down Syndrome and she wanted to see if the school could do anything to help people gain more knowledge of those who were born with it.
Back (L-R): Amber Parnell, Ronnie Gall, Phoebe Gall, Kendal Martin. Front (L-R): George Riley-Jones, Mason Matheson, Amelie Stolworthy, Charlotte Wilkinson, Katie Freudenberg.
Ronnie is a member of the school council, so she asked the council at their regular meeting, if they could do anything in order to help raise awareness. The whole council thought about what different ideas they could do at school and how they could get as many people involved as possible.
Ronnie’s idea happened to be just before World Down Syndrome Day on 21st March 2023, so the council decided that everyone in the school would wear odd socks to highlight the day in the calendar.
Students and teachers took part in the observance with everybody wearing odd and wacky socks to school for the day.
The students had an assembly that morning to teach them all about how everyone is different. It showed students that every person is unique and that we should always appreciate the parts of us that make us stand out from everyone else.
Ronnie said: “It’s important to me because my friend has Down Syndrome. I understand it because he is my friend but I don’t think many people in my class do, so I wanted to do something special to teach more people about it.”
Principal, Rebecca Scott said: “It was all Ronnie’s idea and we were fortunate that she thought of it just before the National observance day.
We decided to highlight the day with everyone wearing odd socks and I was very impressed with all the crazy socks we had through the day.
We are very proud of Ronnie for putting the idea forward and have had a great day.”
